Cathy: He’s a little bit high on chocolate covered espresso beans so I apologize. I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.

Reid: I’m so cranked out right now and Cathy is awesome. Yes. What was the question?

Cathy: They were having great sex, they moved in —

Reid: Yeah, they moved in together. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Cathy: It can be a challenge.

Reid: Yeah.

Cathy: It’s the fear that a lot of people have. It’s like oh, you get married and you never have sex again.

Reid: Couple of questions to ask. Not even that, first advice, go read “Mating in Captivity” Esther Perel. Brilliant woman. Amazing book. Just go read that right off the bat.

Cathy: Amazing accent too. Reid has done some videos with her, yeah.

Reid: She’s… We love Esther.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Thanks, Esther. Here’s the other thing advice-wise. First off, just real quick questions like if I was coaching this couple or this person. Is this the first time you’ve ever lived with somebody or them? Because not that there’s a huge difference but there’s definitely a distinction. You just got out of college or you’re 21 and you’ve just moved in with your first boyfriend ever, or girlfriend or whatever ever. Then there’s I’m in my 30’s yada yada yada. I’ve had roommates before. If this is the first time, if you guys have never had roommates before and you’ve just moved in together well that explains everything.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Then there’s I’ve had lots of roommates before. I’ve lived with lovers before and now I’ve just moved in with my new partner. Then there’s the I’ve been married and divorced three times and I just moved in with my new paramour. All of those situations have little differences and nuances based on your own life experience and what you know about yourself.

To try to look at what’s going on through this keyhole. One keyhole of frequency and hotness of sex, I think, one just as a scientist that’s a horrible… This is the beginning of the study, that is not the study. You have a hypothesis. What’s going on is well, you’ve had a lot of hot sex, maybe it was for two years you were having hot sex and then you moved in together. Now you’re into the third year and just maybe the dopamine and the eroticism is weighing because of that.

Cathy: Or you might have a whole bunch of new shared responsibilities where before you didn’t care if you didn’t take out the trash or if she didn’t wash her dishes up at night. But now you’re sharing a space and those things are coming up. A lot of times people don’t speak about them, especially if you’ve just moved in together you’re kind of like, “Oh, it’ll be okay.”

Reid: “We’ll see how it all shakes out.”

Cathy: Yeah, “They’ll figure it out.”

Reid: “He’ll eventually get the toilet paper goes over.”

Cathy: Sitting down and actually talking about the things that are bothering you and figuring out a way to hopefully create a win-win. I really hate when you don’t wash the dishes at night before we go to bed. Oh, I never wash the dishes. I don’t want to. They’re there every morning —

Reid: I used to have a roommate who’s they do dinner and then they wash the dishes in the morning.

Cathy: Yeah. It may be just a different style. There’s no right or wrong, but really I hate that you don’t wash the dishes but if you stack them neatly in the sink and they’re not all over the counter, I can handle it. We’ll be good.

Reid: Oh yeah. Oh, the dishes are stacked. Oh, yeah.

Cathy: I have actually, the most conventional dating advice, relationship advice I don’t think is very good, but I love the fact that someone was talking about, “Hey, if you want to get laid, take the trash out.” For someone who’s an active service person —

Reid: But then wash your hands. That’s the part they don’t tell you.

Cathy: No, but like if it’s something your partner really cares about, taking care of that could be a sign of, “Hey, I really care and I’m thinking about you,” which is something that can be pretty sexy. Then setting aside date time. When you live apart…

Cathy: Right. You set aside time it’s not like, “Oh, we can have sex whenever.” It’s like… Sometimes when something is always available you never do it.

Reid: Yeah. This can be kind of the unintentional kiss of death of moving in together. You guys probably in your heated frolicking, which was frequent and passionate, weren’t having conversations about “What kind of roommate would you be like? Toilet paper over or under kind of person?”

Cathy: Are your socks on the floor all the time?

Reid: Yeah. When I’m not around what do you actually do? Is that a good fit for me as a roommate and then the other thing is like, “Yeah, just the way you sit around in your sweatpants that you’ve been wearing all week, I notice, and play videogames and stack your dishes drives me mad with passion.” You end up moving in and it just kills everything.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Nothing’s wrong yet.

Cathy: You don’t have to be not be selfish… It’s not that you don’t have to be yourself. It’s not all about pretending to be someone else so you can get laid because that’s what conventional people teach and that’s not good.

Reid: Yeah. Well, some advice… Conventional advice some of it’s still useful but relationships have changed so much. Again, it’s a great question, we love it but there’s also not enough details in the questions so we’re making up reasons we think could be what’s going on and it might not actually apply to who we’re doing.

Cathy: Yeah so you’re always welcome to add new comments and give us more details. We’ll try to get back to you.

Reid: Please, all of you and check out Esther Perel’s “Mating in Captivity” because it’s a great book and she also has a TedTalk on it if you want to Google that if you’re more into videos.

Cathy: Yeah it’s about safety versus excitement.

Reid: Yeah and you might be into videos because you’re watching this one.